


Of Doubts and Homecomings

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Series: NaNo Meets Whumptober [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Fevers, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Sickfic, Whumptober 2019, Whumptober Alt Prompt: Fever, Whumptober Prompt: Delirious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 21:04:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21308593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: The promised and planned trip to see El and Will for Thanksgiving has arrived, and Mike isn't going to let some fever (or latent insecurities) stop him from going.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Joyce Byers & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers & Mike Wheeler
Series: NaNo Meets Whumptober [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533689
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Of Doubts and Homecomings

**Author's Note:**

> Second fic of this little project, and it's the second time said project is pushing me to write for a new fandom. This has been peculating for so long that it didn't come out quite like I wanted it to; such are the joys of writing. There's a semi-followup for this fic planned, coming at you this November, and then I'm fresh out of ST fic ideas, meaning I may just end up taking a quick dip in this fandom before never writing for it again. Who knows what the future will bring? 
> 
> For now, I can explain some of my tags: this is to fill Whumptober day three, which was "Delirious", but I subbed it in with number three on the alt-prompt list, which is "Fever", because it didn't quite touch the first prompt well enough. My BTH bingo also had a "Fevers" square, so two birds, one stone. 
> 
> One other thing to say before I end this long author's note: I ship Mileven romantically, but Will and Mike's platonic love and platonic physical affection equivalent to home-cooked, wholesome meals for me. Which is why Will gets as much of Mike's thought-time in this fic as El does. The Joyce and Mike bonding is just entirely self-indulgent, because there is _not enough Joyce and Mike content_ for my greedy little eyes, so I made it myself.

Mike’s forehead and cheek left a sweat stain on the bus window when he laboriously lifted his head to stop the rough road banging out too many of his braincells. The action was done automatically, without halting the runthrough of the campaign currently taking place in his head. It was an old one that the Party had completed in record time – there was no need to create new campaigns, any more, and the action was simply a reflex one to keep his mind off of the long, tedious bus ride. The distraction wasn’t working very well, however; the bus had been swerving and bumping very obviously for close to an hour, now, and Mike felt queasy and sweaty and generally out-of-sorts from the lurching and the amount of time he’d spent folded up into a bus seat. 

He also, admittedly, felt those things because of the fever he’d been running for the past two days. It hadn’t been too difficult to keep it from his family – his dad was his dad, and his mother and Holly were both distracted by Holly’s Thanksgiving school to-dos – but the rest of the Party, and even Steve, had been giving him disbelieving, narrow-eyed looks by the end of the first day, no matter how many excuses or snappish shutdowns he levered their way. The parts of him not miserable or anxious were marinating in a guilt he knew all-too-well for how he’d  _once again _ used his words as a too-harsh weapon, and he knew he’d have to put the way he was learning to apologise for it into practise once he got home. 

But that was for  _then –_ all that mattered in the present moment was that  _nothing _ ‘postponed’ the trip - an adult term he knew all too well actually meant  _cancelled_ . He’d heard his dad use the term ‘take a rain check’ enough when he was younger (and still cared a little too much about his dad sticking to plans they made together) to trust that an alternative trip would be made if sickness kept him from heading up to Will and El for Thanksgiving as they’d planned. Sure, them coming down for Christmas had been something casually talked about every now and then, but Mrs Byers and his mom were both being very careful not to commit outright to anything. 

“It’s Christmas, Mike. People want to spend time with family at the seaside. Not coming back to a little town in the middle of nowhere that hurts for them,” his mom had hedged a week ago, when he’d once again tried to make her turn the Christmas idea into a concrete plan. 

It wasn’t as though Mike didn’t  _get _ the hurting part; he really and truly did. He hadn’t even  _liked _ Hopper that much, and it still punched him in the gut enough to leave him breathless every time the memory of the man made its way across his day. And Max’s confused grief was everywhere in their lives as well, with occasional sprinkles from her parents whenever Mike’s mom brought them another casserole or the like. True, that type of hurting was more a second-hand experience; a pain for the pain of somebody you cared about and could not fix. Max might have been a pain in Mike’s ass most of the time, and not exactly proven entirely trustworthy just yet on account of how much she genuinely seemed to want to sabotage Mike in some areas, but that didn’t make her any  _less _ Party. And being unable to fix the lostness he saw in her eyes – being unable to deploy even  _Lucas _ to fix it – was a type of aching Mike had to carry around in his gut like a lead weight. 

But Mike also understood personal hurting and loss. El hadn’t  _died –_ and he had no words in any language to express his knee-trembling relief and gratitude for that – but she was also  _once again _ gone from his life. Missing her now, knowing where she was and being able to contact her, was less frantically acute than the almost-year she’d been simply  _gone_ , but there was still a hole in him that stung every single day. Missing Will had taken him by surprise; he’d been prepared for El’s absence to feel raw and wrong as it always had, but he’d never had to contemplate simply not having Will around to realise how much of a hole  _that _ would leave in him. Years of friendship and support and whatever soul-binding bonding the last three years had wrought on them all meant that not having the kid who’d braved everything since kindergarten by his side  _hurt _ in a deep way that came and went like a tide. 

So, sure, Hawkins would not be the easiest place for them to be, and Christmas was meant to be spent with family, but missing El and Will hurt. Not having Will’s presence in the party hurt, like missing some vital organ in their internal dynamics they were still trying to fix. And Will and El  _were _ his family, as much as his blood-relatives were. 

But he wasn’t sure if his reasoning would be accepted as valid by the grownups, or even by El and Will themselves – if there was one thing he’d learned over the past few years, it was that people didn’t seem to understand the well of emotions in his chest, and that getting it out in words always failed in some way. So, while he’d fight the battle for Christmas, he was also not going to be arrogant enough to assume he’d win. Or optimistic enough to assume that some other life-threatening disaster wouldn’t crop up before Christmas; nearly getting eaten three years in a row tended to kill the illusion of forward-planning a little. And he therefore  _refused _ to concede the victory that was this Thanksgiving visit. 

Which was why he’d firmly packed himself on the bus, shivering and feeling like shit and moving almost entirely off of sheer determination. The shivering, the feeling like shit and the determination had all grown as the bus ride had progressed, slowly dragging his sore, exhausted, nervous-excited body closer to El and Will. 

Finally, the bus trundled into his stop. Standing took copious amounts of willpower, and clutching desperately to the backs of seats to get upright and then remain so long enough to grab his bag from the overhead compartments and wobble down the aisle. Despite the banister, he fell down the stairs more than walked down them, knees buckling wildly and head swimming. He had to lean against the side of the bus for a moment to orientate himself and get his legs over him, and he took the pause to look around the small crowd for familiar faces, feeling unwell but triumphant that he’d made it. He spotted Jonathan’s face a moment before Jonathan spotted him; the older Buyers’ face lit up in recognition and then quickly turned to something at his side. 

And then El was pushing her way through the people, heedless of being rude and knocking things over, single-minded in her intent to  _get to him_ . And Mike was sure he would have been able to make himself walk swiftly toward her even if both of his legs were  _broken_ , forget simply shaking slightly, so they met somewhere in the middle of the crowd and the bus and she knocked into him so hard it took several steps for him to right them both. Not once in that shaky stumbling did either of them let go. 

It was worth it. How crap he felt. The long bus ride. The long ache in-between. The uncertainty of seeing them in the future. All of it was worth it because El was  _there_ , she was right there and breathing and he could touch her and feel her and just hold her, be nearly crushed by her, forgetting every single thing else until there was an amused throat-clearing and El pulled away. Will was standing beside them, looking awkward but determined not to leave and very amused, and clarity returned to Mike for a moment. He apologised – to both of them – about the smell he was  _sure _ was radiating off of him; blamed his sweaty, dishevelled appearance on the heat of the bus and the length of the trip. Even so, Will came in for a hug, and Mike just... didn’t let him go, when he first tried to pull away. For a moment, when they finally did part, he thought that emotion was all just him, but Will’s eyes were shining a little, and his, “Hey, Mike,” was soft and so full of lots of things that  _Will _ could probably put into words, but that a crummy bus stop didn’t deserve to hear. 

And then some sort of unsure silence surrounded them. Not as deep and painful as the darker of Mike’s anxieties had feared, but still not the seamless understanding that they’d all once had. Maybe it was because they were waiting for Mike to say something, and he was just working on staying on his feet and not letting on how much his muscles and head  _hurt_ . El glanced from Mike to Will and back again, and Will hurriedly made noises about taking Mike’s bag and getting to the car, which the other two went along with at once. Mike sank into the seats of Jonathan’s car in absolute relief, even though the logical side of him didn’t want to be in another vehicle for a very long time. He let Will and El prattle on as they drove, mostly about the sights because they’d already shared everything else over the Supercom and the telephone and even in letters they’d sent one another. He tried to make his responses as enthusiastic as possible, and tried to pretend he didn’t notice El’s frown at how often he had to break their handhold so he could wipe his sweaty hand on his jeans, but he wasn’t very optimistic about his success rate.

Will, thankfully, once again insisted on carrying Mike’s bag, leaving Mike to only have to carry his own bodyweight on shaking limbs from the car to the front door of the simple, modest little house he wasn’t in the state of mind to pay attention to. Mrs Byers was in the kitchen cooking Thanksgiving dinner, but she came out with open arms to greet Mike. Like her youngest son, Mike’s stammered explanation of how sweaty and smelly he was didn’t stop her from giving him a hug. 

“Well, you weren’t kidding about that smell,” she joked with a theatrical wince, smoothing her hands over Mike’s shoulders. He’d learned that adults did this when they were trying to process the fact that he was so much taller than not only them, but also every member of his family bar his father, who was quickly losing that title as well. “How about you go take a shower before I rope you into paying for your board and lodging with hard work, huh?” 

He accepted gratefully, and the shower was one of the best he’d ever taken, even though he had to sit down halfway through it because of the vertigo. Feeling very slightly better and smelling incredibly so, Mike joined in the last-minute Thanksgiving meal prep, which thankfully included him sitting at the table cramped into the corner of the kitchen to peel and cut things. Even that simple task, however, took more of his flaying concentration than normal, and conversation was stilted from his end as a result. And the less he was able to give back, the more and more uncertain El and Will both became, until the weird silence he’d been dreading fell over the kitchen. 

“I’m sorry,” Mike suddenly blurted, because his brain-to-mouth filter must have melted somewhere around the time it became hard to stick to one thought for more than a few moments. That was all he said for a moment, because a violent shiver overtook him. “I’m – I was worried it was gonna be weird, between us. And now I’m making it weird.” 

El and Will shared another look. “How come?” Will asked, gently. 

“Well, I just... uh...” Mike waved his hand to try and convey his reasons, and then stopped when he realised he was still holding the knife. The shivering hadn’t really stopped, as though that first violent one had broken something loose. “You know?” 

El was looking at him intently. “No,” she said, bluntly. “I don’t know. Mike, what’s wrong? What’s going on with you?” 

“No, nothing, nothing,” he said, and her eyebrows rose in that way that told him he was quickly heading into trouble. “I just, um, you know. People drift... and weirdness... and I was... long trip... and I really wanted to be here but I didn’t know if... and I don’t want it to be weird but I... And I’m sorry because, um, I – ”

“Mike?” Will asked, concerned, leaning toward him across the table. 

Instinctively, Mike leaned away. And ended up resting against Joyce’s thigh as she sneakily came up beside him. He tried to lean away from her, but she placed her hand on his opposite shoulder, effectively pinning him in place unless he  _really _ thrashed to get away. 

“Mike?” Joyce waited until Mike was squinting up at her to continue. “We’re going to forgo the whole argument about how you are and aren’t feeling, and you’re going to put this thermometer under your tongue for me, okay?”

It was phrased as a question, but issued as a command. He’d known this woman for most of his life; he knew when there was absolutely no bullshitting her. So, defeated, sensing his coming doom, Mike simply nodded and accepted the thermometer, only slightly bemused when Joyce kept a hawk’s eye on him the entire time to make sure he wasn’t influencing the reading. Mike hung his head in shame even before Joyce got to read the number, knowing that it would incriminate him. 

Joyce gave a sharp inhale. “101.9,” she declared, and El made a shocked little noise in her throat. “How long have you been feeling sick? Mike?” 

“Few days,” he mumbled, incoherently enough that she asked him to repeat himself. “Two days,” he said, clearer, still speaking to his knees. 

A long pause. “And you didn’t tell anybody? Hey.” 

She tipped his face up to meet hers, and he went reluctantly until she asked him more directly why he hadn’t said anything. Then he was willingly looking her in the eye, pleading internally for her to understand and have mercy, as he said, “I really, really still wanted to come.” He swallowed and shivered again a little. “Are you... are you gonna send me home?” 

Somebody shifted on their chair a little while Joyce searched the face she still held tipped up to her. “Eventually, yeah,” Joyce said, gently. “But for now... How lousy do you feel?  _Honestly_ , Mike Wheeler.” He pulled a face and made a noise that sounded rather pathetic, and she nodded. “That’s what I thought. Home remedy time. Will, get the mixture from the bathroom, please?” 

Will scrambled up from the table at once, and El scooted her chair closer with a few wince-inducing scrapes as Joyce left his side. “Mike,” she whispered, voice tinged in concern, and he let her take his hand despite the fact that it was shaking and tried to give her a reassuring smile. 

Joyce handed over cooking to Jonathan for a while so she could throw together a mug of her self-professed home-remedy. Jonathan looked anxious as he hovered around the food, obviously scared to let something burn, and Will and El looked anxious as they hovered over Mike, their prep largely halted by their concern. 

“Dude, you could have just stayed home,” Will said, sounding a little exasperated. 

And that made Mike flinch a little. He’d been so caught up in his desire to see El and Will – to beat the system, to push past every obstacle to his goal – that he hadn’t thought of the implications. And now they were staring him in the face: inconveniencing everybody on Thanksgiving because they had to take care of him. Putting them all at risk of infection. Guilt curled like acid in his gut and made his shoulders haunch. 

“We’re _glad _you’re here with us,” El interjected suddenly, words quick and hand grasping his. 

“Wha-? Oh, shit, yeah, we are. Of course we are,” Will said, hurriedly. “We just... don’t want you to make yourself sicker because of it.” 

Mike was saved from finding an answer by Joyce handing over the home-brew and instructing him to down it. It tasted as awful as he felt, but it and the nap he was forced to take on the couch after drinking it undoubtedly helped – when he woke up, he felt quite a bit more human and capable of complex thoughts. Joyce gives him pills with his meal, which he takes without complaint, and for a while he gets to ignore the fever and gain what he’d come all that way for: family and Thanksgiving and fun. With feeling better came his anecdotes of friends and foes back in Hawkins; of personal greetings to Will and El from the Party; of jokes made at everybody’s expense at the table. 

“I liked you better when you were out of it,” Jonathan grumbled good-naturedly, still blushing from Mike’s last barb, and something warm and feeling like _home _finally settled in Mike’s chest as El and Will cracked up laughing and Joyce grinned unashamedly. 

He couldn’t stomach much, but Joyce saved his usual-sized helping in a container with the promise of physical bodily harm on his behalf if any of her offspring went after it without Mike’s express, and lucid, permission. And then they all parked off in front of the tiny TV, content to leave the dishes for the morning. Somehow, Mike ended up lying with his head in El’s lap without Joyce saying anything about it, and he dozed on and off while El stroked his sweaty hair and made patterns on his temple with her fingers. He was, however, fully awake when El and Will headed off to bed, but pretended to be asleep so that they’d leave him on the couch. 

Dazedly, he listened to the sounds of the household puttering around getting ready for bed, blissful in the dark and quiet of the living room. But the comforter that had been placed over him was getting warm, so he pushed it off his top half. And then nearly had a heart-attack when something sat on the armrest by his head. He jerked onto his back and looked up to see Joyce looking down at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Wanna tell me what this is all about?” she asked, quietly, also offering him a glass of water. 

“I’ll keep Will awake if I sleep in the room with him,” Mike croaked back. “I’m – I get restless when I’m...” 

Joyce’s mouth quirked into a little smile, but she stayed quiet until she’d helped Mike sit up and start sipping at his water with shaky hands. “I mean  _all _ of this, Mike. I’m pretty sure your mom would have told me you weren’t feeling well, which means you blatantly hid it from her. And I... Wanna know what’s going on in that head of yours that you came all the way out here – ”

“I’m sorry,” Mike muttered, hastily. “I know I shouldn’t have... I really hope I don’t make you all sick. I just... I couldn’t _risk _it.” 

“Hmm.” Joyce got up, but it was only so she could sit beside Mike on the couch for real. “Okay. Compromise time. I won’t rat on you to your mom. And I won’t put you on the next bus home, like I already said. And, for the record, I’m not mad that you’re bringing some plague upon my household or however you boys would put it. _And _I promise to listen. But then you need to give me honesty in return, okay? You’re not in trouble. I’m just... trying to figure out whether it was the fever, whether it was the love hormones or whether it’s something deeper that made you do this. Maybe I’ve grown excruciatingly paranoid.” She laughed a little, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “But... I’d rather be paranoid than sorry. So. If it _is _more than love or general teenage boy stupidity, then I wanna know. Because, Mike, you shouldn’t go through this alone. It’s hard enough _with _other people who also understand.” 

“I just...” Mike struggled with his words, his usual emotional verbal inadequacy made worse by the fuzzy-headed feeling and distracting aching of his entire body. “I _missed _her. I missed them _both_, Mrs Byers.” He glanced at her, and found her watching him with an impassive, but kind, face. “And I just... this was the only real, promised time I’d get to see them. I couldn’t... I didn’t want to miss the chance.” 

Joyce frowned a little. “We’ve been talking about going down to Hawkins for Christmas,” she countered, voice confused. Mike dropped his gaze and shrugged. “Mike,” she prompted, firm but still gentle. 

“You could change your mind,” Mike mumbled, tone apologetic at the insinuation. “I know... I know _why _you left Hawkins so coming back... Or my mom could change her mind. Or Hawkins could be attacked by aliens in the meantime. _Anything _can happen just like _that_.” He managed to meet her eye again, passion overtaking and making the words suddenly come fast and passionate and a little desperate. “And I can’t _stop it_, Mrs Byers. I can’t... I can’t make it stop. It’s not... it’s not like a campaign, where I can nudge things to go the way I want. It’s not _science_. It doesn’t happen like that. So we could say Christmas all we want, but I can’t be _sure_, and if I had to wait _another year _to see her – I couldn’t. I _can’t_.” 

Joyce pursed her lips and nodded a little, and Mike fidgeted and looked away, used to people reacting negatively when his attempts to explain all the  _things _ going on inside of him finally burst out beyond his control. 

“Fair,” she started, slowly. “Things might come up – from various sides. But if Christmas doesn’t work, then I would have worked _hard _to make an alternate plan to make up for it.” Mike didn’t look at her, but she must have read his quiet disbelief in the set of his jaw. “You don’t think so?” Mike shrugged. “You think I’d just say, ‘oh well. Maybe Summer, you’ll just have to wait’ and not realise how much you and El miss each other? How much Will misses you, too?” Mike shrugged again and Joyce sighed. “Honesty, remember? What makes you think I don’t care about your and El’s relationship?” 

She waited, watching as Mike squirmed under his gaze. Finally, Mike couldn’t take the silence any more, and he blurted, “Hopper was okay with it in the beginning, too. And then...” He shut his mouth with an audible snap around the rest of the words. 

To his absolute surprise, Joyce didn’t freeze or recoil from the bomb of hurt that name probably was to her. Instead, she curled closer and put her hand on Mike’s shoulder, rubbing circles with her thumb. “I meant what I said, Mike. I’m pushing you about this because I really don’t want you to sit with things you should be sharing with others. I don’t want you to be scared that I’m taking El away from you. Come on. Talk about it. Hopper was okay with it. And then?” 

Mike hesitated for another moment, before all the old anger and hurt bubbled up and blurted out, quiet but angry, growing in speed as the desperation mounted. “He told me my grandmother was sick to get me to leave the house. Locked me in his car and drove... really fast. And told me if I didn’t lie to El – lie  _good _ so she  _believed me _ – and stay away from her a  _lot _ more he’d make sure I never saw her again  _ever_ . And he lived in the same town as me. You... you guys are all the way out here and if you wanted... I  _can’t _ lose her. I  _can’t_ . And Will... Will’s... I mean, not in the same way but... he’s one of my best friends. I  _had _ to come. And I’m so  _sorry_ for making a mess of this, too but I just – every time we think it’s safe it’s  _not _ and I couldn’t.. I’m  _sorry_ -” 

He broke off when Joyce pulled him into a hug, tucking him close and hard against her. Mike hoped she thought the trembling was all the fever; hoped that she mistook some of the tears he couldn’t fight down for sweat. And he clung back, because he was sore and  _tired_ and a little bit over always wondering who would be taken, next, and whether this time he wouldn’t be lucky enough to be spared the blow of first-hand grief. Joyce ran a hand up and down his back like he was a toddler, and he was so damn thankful for her already, even before she pulled back and began to speak. 

“You’ve taken care of Will _so well_. And El. All of them, really. This _isn’t on you_.” She stoked his hair back from his forehead in a very motherly gesture. “I promise you that I will do all I can to keep you and El seeing each other as often as possible. And Will, too. There are going to be boundaries, and discussions about compromise, and I expect you two to hold up your end of the bargains we make, okay?” Mike nodded, vigorously. “But I know... I can _see _that you and El are important to one another, okay? And I respect that. And I’m going to support that as best as I can without ruining your educations. Or your _health_.” She gave Mike a little shake. “But also...” She hesitated and Mike stiffened, and she automatically went back to trying to smooth the return of his wariness. “I’m not taking any of it back, relax. I just... I want you to try and think about that old anecdote about, uh... ‘if you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it’s meant to be’. It’s corny, I know, but you _do _have to let the other person _choose_. You can’t _smother_ El into loving you; so scared of losing her that you put her in a protective box that pushes her further away. Take it from somebody who knows. Think about that when you’re not frying a little in your brain, okay?” 

Mike nodded automatically, and Joyce patted him on the shoulder before getting up and taking his empty glass. “Mrs Byers?” he blurted to her back. “I – thank you. For... all of it, I guess. And... If you, like... I mean, I don’t want you to go through it alone, either.” 

Something complicated happened on her face. “Mike, you’re  _fourteen_ .” 

“Doesn’t mean I won’t get it,” he said back, softly. 

“No,” Joyce replied, still with that complicated look on her face. “And that’s what...” She shook herself visibly. “Get some sleep, Mike. You’ll need it to feel better in the morning.” 

He lay down obediently, and fell asleep quickly, but his dreams were strange and scattered. At one point, he dreamed Holly had another nightmare and asked to crawl into bed with him. At another point, he had a very hot, human-sized stone lashed to his front as punishment for failing physics class. To get it removed, he had to prove his knowledge by saying the periodic table in Quenya, which he was admittedly shaky at, but even as he began to try, Galadriel touched his forehead and urged him to stop. She was too soft to ignore.

And then the light through the open window was waking him up. It took a lot longer than it should have for him to register he wasn’t alone on the couch, but that somebody else was stubbornly squashed in beside him, and after he realised that he took a long time to just let himself watch El sleep, indulging in her peace and the feel of her breathing against his side. He wondered when she’d arrived, and how restless a night he’d given her, and how much time they had before Joyce woke up and instigated her first Boundaries talk because she found them curled up like that. 

It was the last thought coupled with the need for the bathroom and the fact that sleeping under a comforter and a girlfriend was  _hot_ , and not in the eyebrow-waggling way, that finally forced Mike to move. It was an awkward endeavour that woke El up pretty early on, but he convinced her to go back to sleep, and then wobbled to the bathroom, brushing his teeth for good measure. He meant to head into the kitchen only for a glass of water, but the dishes piled in the sink gave him an idea. 

Joyce arrived when he was about a fifth of the way through the pile. “Is this a fever thing, or related to the fact that I just walked past El asleep on the couch?” she asked, wryly. 

“Bribery isn’t guaranteed to work, but it helps, sometimes,” Mike offered, honestly. 

She snorted, yawned, and ruffled his hair. “Smart kid.” Then she frowned, and placed a palm to his forehead. “But I’m pulling you from sucking up duty until you’re normal temperature.  Get back to that couch , and I’ll bring you medication. You get to choose the channel, since you’re first up – house rules.” 

Something about that insinuation – that Mike did not get such privileges simply because he was a guest, but that he had to get them the same way as family in this household – cemented what he’d told her last night. Joyce looked a little startled at the strength of the grin he levered her way, but Mike returned to the couch with a lighter heart than he’d had in months. This time, he was the one to curl up behind El, not caring that he was mostly falling off the couch, awkwardly trying to find a place for his too-long legs.  El sleepily mumbled his name and he buried his head into the crook of her shoulder and fell asleep easily and deeply before Joyce could even come through to bring him more pills. 


End file.
